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Friday, August 2, 2013

Blogoversary Day 5 - Stacey Jay Interviews Me Plus Giveaway!

Wow - two years! That's pretty crazy! I've met a lot of really wonderful bloggers and readers in the past two years and have learned that I'm not the only crazy person who likes to read about things that go bump in the night...and in your bed! I've also met some really cool authors. Some were new favorites who were so down to Earth and others were such big authors to me that I was left star struck!

To celebrate my second blogoversary I thought I'd switch things up a bit. All this week I will be the one interviewed!

I've asked some of my favorite authors and bloggers to pick my brain and boy did they come up with some interesting questions! Some went the serious route and threw one big question at me, while others wanted to know a series of things about my reading life. Others still - and you know who you are - took a bit of a less serious route.

On to day five! Today, Stacey Jay, adult and YA author, is stopping by to ask me a big question!

Here it is:

Does there ever come a point when an author becomes such
a friend that you feel awkward giving reviews? As in: giving a negative review
feels harsh, or giving a positive review feels biased? And if so, what do you
do in those situations?

This must really be a hot topic with authors because another author asked a similar question this week as well! As a blogger, I've made tons of friends through Goodreads, Facebook, and Twitter - some fellow bloggers but some authors as well. Sometimes these friendships between bloggers and authors make reviewing awkward, even if they are just casual online friendships. There have been times that I've not liked books by authors with whom I've cultivated friendships online. That's tricky. I still have to be honest about my feelings about the book, but now I worry what that author will think if they read my review. It really makes it that much harder to be honest in my review. This is most common for me when an author I love starts a new series. Sometimes I love that new series but sometimes it just doesn't jive with me like the old series. I've always been truthful when I didn't care for a book, but I do try to focus on what I didn't like about the book and not focus on the author. I typically don't tweet the author or the publisher with a link to my review, like I might have if a gave a book a great review. I kind of sweep it under the rug to be honest! I'll discuss the book with other readers and post my review all the same places I normally would, I just don't mention it to the author at all.

7 comments:

I guess I sort of have experience on three sides of this question. I am a writer (Though only published one small story so far), a blogger (and have given some friends bad reviews) and have a degree in advertising.

It's true what they say, there's no such thing as bad advertising. No matter what, even if you give a book a bad review, people will still consider buying it. Maybe they haven't agreed with some of your reviews in the past, or maybe (like me) the siren call of amazing cover art trumps reviews.

So I don't generally have a problem giving bad reviews. But I will not write a review if it was so bad I couldn't finish it. I'll just rate it on Goodreads. The important thing is that the author is getting exposure.

I,m not a blogger, but I would think as long as you aren't rude or spiteful with your honest review, the author should be okay. They learn what to fix to make their books better so more readers will buy their books. evamillien at gmail dot com

I'm not a blogger, but I have quite a few authors that I'm pretty familiar with. I feel like as long as it's an honest review, I'm good. Luckily, I don't run across books I don't like very often, and if I did, I'm more inclined to just state that the book wasn't really for me, etc. and not get into details.

I'm not a blogger but I imagine it is a tough situation. I would never want to insult someone that I respect as a professional and even friend. I also think it is important to be honest to your readers. Thanks for the giveaway!